Indiana needs to pay our elected leaders more

Hoosiers are practical people who recognize the tremendous value of quality leadership and ideas. As the salaries of various local CEOs have been published and the focus of media attention recently, we thought it might be an opportune time to address the issue of compensation for some very important Hoosier leaders. If we want to recruit talented leaders to run for office, we have to pay our elected officials more fairly for the jobs they do.

In today's cynical political debate, where anyone on TV is an expert, it is increasingly more difficult to have a civil discourse around this issue. Gov. Mike Pence makes $112,000 annually with several other small allowances. Pence, Indiana's CEO, oversees a two-year state budget that is roughly $30 billion, and the State of Indiana employs almost 30,000 of our fellow citizens. By comparison, the assistant city manager in Cincinnati makes $134,000 per year. Who do you think has the bigger job?

And that is not an anomaly. There are municipal staff in other cities, like the aforementioned assistant city manager, making far more than our mayor and governor. The deputy mayor in Nashville, for example, makes $140,000, and the chief of staff in St. Louis makes $156,000. Senior staff members in the Indianapolis mayor's office make more than the mayor himself, and the average governor's salary nationally is $131,000.

The city of Indianapolis has a $1 billion budget and thousands of employees. In the private sector, CEOs of companies that size would make seven figures. The mayor of Indianapolis earns $95,000.

This is no way to run our government.

We recognize that this is a challenging argument to make when the economy is just beginning to rebound and our fellow Americans are struggling to find jobs. But if we want to continue to live in a great state, with cities to which people want to flock, we need to attract the best talent to run for office and become elected officials who can build strong communities and manage our government in a way that creates opportunities for all Hoosiers.

Today, the system is built on a foundation that attracts wealthy candidates who want a second career in politics, people who are willing to work way below their pay grade, or first-timers who are nowhere near their peak earning years. Some of them turn out to be outstanding public servants and should be commended for running, but too many men and women never consider a bid for elected office because they simply can't afford to take the job they're seeking.

We pay top professional athletes and the executives who run our largest companies millions of dollars per year. According to Chris Cillizza in The Washington Post, "In 40 of the 50 states, the highest paid public employee is either a football, basketball or hockey coach at a public university. In zero out of the 50 states is the highest paid employee a politician." Our university presidents make hundreds of thousands of dollars. No one is arguing that we should pay elected officials at the highest levels, but a quick look at how salaries compare to other jobs makes it clear we need to pay them more.

Former Gov. Mitch Daniels will make $420,000 as president of Purdue University, nearly four times the salary during his two terms, and his contract includes performance-based incentives that could increase that number to $546,000. Even at that level, he's still the lowest paid university president in the Big Ten. Yes, that's potentially five times what he made as governor. However, the issue is not what he is making as a university president, but rather how little he was compensated while serving as the governor of our state.

The numbers in Indiana just don't add up if we want to recruit competent, dedicated candidates with strong executive leadership experience. One could argue the problem only gets worse with respect to candidates for lesser-known statewide offices.

The office of Superintendent of Public Instruction is a good example: What school superintendent or businessperson would sacrifice a good salary and professional conditions to make far less money facing the challenges associated with leading education for the state? Indeed, it is one of the most important jobs for the future of our children.

In our final analysis, we must decide what value we place on quality and inspired leadership. It's a disservice to taxpayers to perpetuate a system that pays our state and local leaders salaries that are not consistent with the importance and difficulty of the office. One prospective solution would create a formula that ties public salaries to a national average that's adjusted regularly for inflation and cost of living.

Let's continue the tradition of valuing our key elected leaders by paying them a fair rate for the work we ask them to do. Without a substantive change to keep compensation on par with the depth of responsibilities they are undertaking, we'll risk further weakening our system in the long run.